Friday, 31 July 2009

Chedd's - Grilling Your Cheese So You Don't Have To

I'm a less-than-functional cook. No, seriously - everything you see on this blog was made by Logan, with very few (gross!) exceptions. But even I can grill a freaking cheese sandwich.

But if you can't, or don't want to, now Austin has Chedd's, a new grilled cheese emporium in the Triangle that offers a bewildering array of melted cheeses on super-buttery grilled breads. And when I say super-buttery, please don't think I'm kidding. I think there was more butter and cheese on the sandwiches we tried than there was bread.

We tried it out last week with a coupon for a free sandwich and a blogger's deal for 50 percent off our total ticket.

I wasn't sure what to expect on arrival. How many permutations of bread and cheese could there possibly be? Turns out there are at least 30 suggested sandwiches, and that's not including their build-your-own option. If you're a grilled cheese purist, though, you'll be angered by the inclusion of meats and vegetables and condiments in a lot of these sandwiches - it is not a basic marriage of cheese and bread.

We over-ordered three sandwiches. The Ultimate was one of their lower-end sandwiches, a classic trio of cheese and bread and grilled. The Buff Hamster, which I'm pretty sure Logan ordered just for the name, had two cheeses (a Muenster and a Buffalo Blue Jack) and ham on wheat. It was fine, but really how can you get all het up about a grilled ham and cheese sandwich?

My choice, the Hot Gobbler, ended up being my favorite. They ratcheted up the heat on this one - the cheese was habanero jack, the jalapenos and banana peppers were seriously hot and cut through all that creamy cheese and butter, and the onion added a nice crunch. And there was turkey, but it sort of disappeared except for a slight meatiness.

Well, you guys all probably know what a grilled cheese sandwich looks like, but here are our three Chedd's versions:

I've gotta say, grilled cheese seems like a pretty flimsy foundation on which to build a restaurant empire, but it seems to be working for these guys so far. It's simple food that people already like and understand, and I'm sure they'll do just fine, even if I'd rather just grill my own cheese sandwich and save the 4 bucks or so. At least that way I'd be able to control the amount of cheese and butter on my bread!